There was a dazzling spaceship in his backyard! The spaceship was huge!The spaceship was an odd shade of white and green and emitted strange smoke. Nothing untoward had ever happened in his planet Utopia. No thieving, no homicide, not even car wrecks! The planet was perfect. The only way Bloomberg knew about unfortunate events was from reading about them in fictional novels. Bloomberg was a voracious reader. The misfortunes he read in books was set in a made up world called planet Earth. Everyone in planet Utopia knew that there was no such place called Earth. Bloomberg often felt bad for the characters in the books. Bloomberg heard the beeping noise again and pondered, “What was a spaceship doing in his backyard? Am I the only one who is seeing this giant spaceship? Am I hallucinating?”
Then he opened his patio door. As soon as he did that, he realized it was a bad move. A strange looking alien came and swooped Bloomberg up from the ground and put him in the spaceship. The alien looked somewhat like Bloomberg but he had round ears unlike his pointed ears. Also, the alien had a tan skin color unlike his green skin. Bloomberg tried to scream but no sound came from his throat. He suddenly felt cold all over and extremely thirsty.
The alien placed Bloomberg on a chair, put a seat belt on him and then the spaceship started to hover off the ground. After the spaceship was in the air for about ten minutes, the alien took off Bloomberg's seat belt. In the spaceship, Bloomberg saw several other aliens. They started doing odd tests on him.
First, the aliens took this unusual instrument and wrapped it on Bloomberg's arm. Next, they pushed a pump that inflated an airbag in his cuff. They stopped pushing that pump and listened to Bloomberg's heartbeat with a cold metal object. Another alien wrote down two numbers on a notepad. In another test, they pricked his index finger and took some blood. They seemed surprised that Bloomberg's blood was red.
Bloomberg could finally talk again. He shouted, “Why are you doing this?” This time all the aliens seemed like they were petrified. “Did you just speak English?” asked one of the aliens who was still dumbfounded. “Yes I did. Now, can you please tell me why you aliens are doing this to me? Who are you anyway? And why are you here? Where are you coming from?” demanded Bloomberg. The alien who pricked Bloomberg's finger replied, “We are from the planet Earth. My colleagues and I were just doing some tests to see if your species were anything like ours. Turns out, your species and our species are very similar!” It was Bloomberg's turn to be surprised now. “Did you aliens say you were from planet Earth?” asked Bloomberg. Just a few minutes ago he was thinking there was no planet called Earth. Is this really happening? “Yes, we are from planet Earth. How do you know about it?” asked another alien. Bloomberg replied, “I read about it in a book a long time ago. But when I asked about it, everyone said there was no such planet. To our knowledge, there are no planets within 16 trillion kilometers from Planet Utopia.”
Bloomberg asked again, “So, why are you here in Planet Utopia?” The aliens hesitated to answer the question this time. Finally one of them said, “Well, on Earth we have a lot of people, about 1 trillion people now, and the Earth doesn't have much room and natural resources to help everyone survive. Apart from the 1 trillion people, we have different types of animals too. We need more space. So my colleagues here and many others still on Earth discovered this planet. The tests we conducted back on Earth led us to hope that this planet could be just right for humans to live.” Bloomberg thought about this dilemma. He said “ In the past, we also had similar troubles. Utopians used almost all our resources and we were in a bad state. But now we are using our natural resources more wisely. You aliens should go to the Blue House. That is where Leader Taylor lives. Ask her if the planet Earth people can come and see how Utopians save resources.” “That's a great idea!” said one of the earthlings.
With that, the spaceship hovered back above Bloomberg's house. They dropped him off at his house. It was daylight by then and Bloomberg was too excited to go back to sleep. He quickly got ready for school. The previous night's encounter with the earthlings seemed like a dream. He hopped onto his battery operated scooter and sped to school.
A few hours later, while Bloomberg was in Language Arts, there was breaking news. The headline read, “Aliens have come to Utopia!”
Everyone in Bloomberg's class were shell-shocked. The news reporter said, “Aliens from planet Earth have come to our home. We do not know a lot about this right now, other than the fact that they have gone to the Blue House and they are discussing something important with Leader Taylor. What is this important thing the aliens want to know? Only time can tell. We have also heard that the aliens have taken blood samples and tested one Utopian. We will keep you posted on this shocking event.”
Bloomberg could feel his cheeks getting red. No one in his class spoke for the next five minutes. Bloomberg's teacher continued class but he could tell she was very surprised like everyone else. Everyone wanted to know what this important thing was. So far only Bloomberg knew.
The next day, Leader Taylor delivered an important speech in a televised press conference. She said “...The aliens needed more space and resources. Their initial intent was to invade us and occupy our land. Having come here, and getting a good sense of our strong military and defense forces, they have changed their strategy. They are awe-struck by our way of life and the energy efficient technologies we are using. Their leader, President Boroma had a hearty conversation with me over trans-planetic conference call. He is seeking our help and expertise to became more energy efficient. So starting Monday, each family will be assigned an earthling in training. Your job is to teach them how to save resources just like we do. I think this is a good deed we are doing for our new friends. After the aliens return to their land, a few of them will come every year to have a conference with us and discuss new technologies about saving even more! If you follow what we are going to do, this will be very beneficiary to the earthlings. I hope you all will cooperate in this collaboration and make planet Utopia proud.”
Bloomberg was happy to hear that the two planet leaders opted for peaceful collaboration than war. Bloomberg was also excited to meet an alien for the second time and was eager to show him how to save their resources. He wanted to show the aliens how to harvest rain water, recycle more, how to conserve water and other forms of energy.
Ding Dong. Bloomberg ran to open the door. The alien standing outside was the same person who ran the strange tests on him! “It's so nice to see you again! My name is Bob.” the alien said. “Hey Bob, my name is Bloomberg. I'm really excited that you are are here. I want to teach you about saving resources. First, let me introduce you to my parents. Here is my mom, dad and my sister” replied Bloomberg. Bloomberg's family greeted Bob and offered him some gloffee.
Bloomberg told Bob about how important water harvesting was. “In every house we have a terrace. When it rains, all the rain will go down the gutters. Then the water gets purified by going through many different types of materials. You have to make sure you clean it often and it is covered at all times so nothing unwanted could contaminate the water. You can use this to water your plants, or use it for washing machines and dishwashers. Rainwater harvesting is a really good way to save water and save money on the water bill too! Also when you are using the water, make sure you use it wisely. If you are waiting to get hot water from a tap, save the cold water that you get and use it for something else.”
Next Bloomberg's sister explained the need to recycle. “I am pretty sure in planet Earth there are a lot of landfills right?” Bob nodded and replied, “In planet Earth we do have a recycling system. But not a lot of people are recycling.” Bloomberg's sister said, “The first thing all the governments should do is to mandate recycling. Recycling mini labs can be set up in each neighborhood to facilitate easy and quick recycling.”
Then Bloomberg's father discussed about using solar and wind energy. “Your planet revolves around a sun right?” Bob said yes. “And of course there is wind produced by the seas. So, use that to your advantage. Make solar panels and wind turbines and use that to power a generator or virtually anything that needs power. Also like Bloomberg said before, it will save the people money too!”
Finally, Bloomberg's mother said, “Planet Earth needs to find an alternate fuel other than diesel and gasoline. Also make battery-operated cars instead of the cars running on diesel or gasoline. Here in planet Utopia, we take the trash from our landfills, compress it and add a solvent to it. That makes the trash into a liquid fuel that produces very minimal pollution.” Bob seemed amazed. He didn't know one could do so much to preserve resources on Earth. “Thank you so much for telling be all these ways to preserve the resources that we have! I will see you next year!”
This was only the beginning of a huge exchange between planet Earth and Utopia. Leader Taylor and President Boroma have planned several projects to promote science, art, language, and cultural exchanges between the two planets. In a few years Utopia will be connected to planet Earth's world wide web (WWW) and Utopians can keep in touch with their earth friends through Spazebuk.
Planet Earth has already made great strides in energy conservations and have reduced their global warming by 10°C. By working together, Utopians and earthlings have done the noble deed of preserving resources for posterity. Bloomberg is proud of doing his share in making this cosmic change. He is eagerly awaiting his study abroad scholarship to a Guilford County School next year.
1 comment:
Love it Shruti - can I get a one way to ticket to Utopia ! Best wishes and hope the entry moves on - Lakshmi Aunty
Post a Comment